Gene Eliza Tierney (November 19, 1920 – November 6, 1991)[1] was an American film and stage actress. Acclaimed as a great beauty, she became established as a leading lady.[2][3] Tierney was best known for her portrayal of the title character in the film Laura (1944), and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance as Ellen Berent Harland in Leave Her to Heaven (1945).[4]

Laura is a 1944 American film noir produced and directed by Otto Preminger. It stars Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews and Clifton Webb along with Vincent Price and Judith Anderson. The screenplay by Jay Dratler, Samuel Hoffenstein and Betty Reinhardt is based on the 1943 novel Laura by Vera Caspary.

The Academy Award for Best Actress is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It is given in honor of an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance in a leading role while working within the film industry. The award was traditionally presented by the previous year's Best Actor winner.

Leave Her to Heaven is a 1945 American film noir, shot in Technicolor, starring Gene Tierney, Cornel Wilde, Jeanne Crain, with Vincent Price, Darryl Hickman, Ray Collins, and Chill Wills. The story was adapted for the screen by Jo Swerling from the best selling novel of the same name by Ben Ames Williams and directed by John M. Stahl.

Heaven Can Wait is a 1943 Technicolor American comedy film produced and directed by Ernst Lubitsch. The screenplay was by Samson Raphaelson based on the play Birthday by Leslie Bush-Fekete. The music score was by Alfred Newman and the cinematography by Edward Cronjager.

The Razor's Edge is the first film version of W. Somerset Maugham's 1944 novel of the same name. It was released in 1946, and stars Tyrone Power, Gene Tierney, John Payne, Anne Baxter, Clifton Webb, and Herbert Marshall, with a supporting cast including Lucile Watson, Frank Latimore, and Elsa Lanchester. Marshall plays Somerset Maugham. The film was directed by Edmund Goulding.

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947) is a romantic-fantasy film starring Gene Tierney and Rex Harrison. It was directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, and is based on a 1945 novel written by Josephine Leslie under the pseudonym of R. A. Dick. In 1945, 20th Century Fox bought the film rights to the novel, which had been published only in the United Kingdom at that time. It was shot entirely in California.

Early life

Tierney was born on November 19, 1920 in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of Howard Sherwood Tierney and Belle Lavinia Taylor. She was named after a beloved uncle, who died young.[4][pageneeded] She had an elder brother, Howard Sherwood "Butch" Tierney, Jr., and a younger sister, Patricia "Pat" Tierney. Their father was a successful insurance broker of Irish descent, their mother a former physical education instructor.[4][pageneeded]

Brooklyn is the most populous borough of New York City, with an estimated 2,648,771 residents in 2017. Named after the Dutch village of Breukelen, it borders the borough of Queens at the western end of Long Island. Brooklyn has several bridge and tunnel connections to the borough of Manhattan across the East River, and the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge connects Staten Island. Since 1896, Brooklyn has been coterminous with Kings County, the most populous county in the U.S. state of New York and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, after New York County.

Tierney was raised in Westport, Connecticut and attended St. Margaret's School in Waterbury, Connecticut, and the Unquowa School in Fairfield. She published her first poem, entitled "Night", in the school magazine and wrote poetry occasionally throughout her life. Tierney played Jo in a student production of Little Women, based on the novel by Louisa May Alcott.

Waterbury is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut on the Naugatuck River, 33 miles southwest of Hartford and 77 miles northeast of New York City. Waterbury is the second-largest city in New Haven County, Connecticut. As of the 2010 census, Waterbury had a population of 110,366, making it the 10th largest city in the New York Metropolitan Area, 9th largest city in New England and the 5th largest city in Connecticut.

Fairfield is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. It borders the city of Bridgeport and towns of Trumbull, Easton, Weston, and Westport along the Gold Coast of Connecticut. As of the 2010 census, the town had a population of 59,404. In September 2014, Money magazine ranked Fairfield the 44th best place to live in the United States, and the best place to live in Connecticut.

In the countable sense, a verse is formally a single metrical line in a poetic composition. However, verse has come to represent any division or grouping of words in a poetic composition, with groupings traditionally having been referred to as stanzas.

Brillantmont International School is a coeducational international school.

Lausanne is a city in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, and the capital and biggest city of the canton of Vaud. The city is situated on the shores of Lake Geneva. It faces the French town of Évian-les-Bains, with the Jura Mountains to its north-west. Lausanne is located 62 kilometres northeast of Geneva.

Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a country situated in western, central and southern Europe. It consists of 26 cantons, and the city of Bern is the seat of the federal authorities. The sovereign state is a federal republic bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland is a landlocked country geographically divided between the Alps, the Swiss Plateau and the Jura, spanning a total area of 41,285 km2 (15,940 sq mi). While the Alps occupy the greater part of the territory, the Swiss population of approximately 8.5 million people is concentrated mostly on the plateau, where the largest cities are to be found: among them are the two global cities and economic centres Zürich and Geneva.

A debutante or deb is a young woman of aristocratic or upper-class family background who has reached maturity and, as a new adult, comes out into society at a formal "debut" or possibly debutante ball. Originally, the term meant the woman was old enough to be married, and part of the purpose of her coming out was to display her to eligible bachelors and their families with a view to marriage within a select circle.

Greenwich Village often referred to by locals as simply "the Village", is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan, New York City. In the 20th century, Greenwich Village was known as an artists' haven, the Bohemian capital, the cradle of the modern LGBT movement, and the East Coast birthplace of both the Beat and '60s counterculture movements. Groenwijck, one of the Dutch names for the village, was Anglicized to Greenwich. Two of New York's private colleges, New York University (NYU) and the New School, are located in Greenwich Village.

George Francis Abbott was an American theater producer and director, playwright, screenwriter, and film director and producer whose career spanned nine decades.

Career

Broadway

In Tierney's first role on Broadway, she carried a bucket of water across the stage in What a Life! (1938). A Variety magazine critic declared, "Miss Tierney is certainly the most beautiful water carrier I've ever seen!" She also worked as an understudy in The Primrose Path (1938).

The following year, she appeared in the role of Molly O'Day in the Broadway production Mrs. O'Brien Entertains (1939).[4][pageneeded] The New York Times critic Brooks Atkinson wrote, "As an Irish maiden fresh from the old country, Gene Tierney in her first stage performance is very pretty and refreshingly modest."[4][pageneeded] That same year, Tierney appeared as Peggy Carr in Ring Two (1939) to favorable reviews. Theater critic Richard Watts, Jr. of the New York Herald Tribune wrote, "I see no reason why Miss Tierney should not have an interesting theatrical career – that is, if cinema does not kidnap her away."[4][pageneeded]

Tierney's father set up a corporation, Belle-Tier, to fund and promote her acting career. Columbia Pictures signed her to a six-month contract in 1939. She met Howard Hughes, who tried unsuccessfully to seduce her. From a well-to-do family herself, she was not impressed by his wealth.[4][pageneeded] Hughes eventually became a lifelong friend.

After a cameraman advised Tierney to lose a little weight, she wrote to Harper's Bazaar magazine for a diet, which she followed for the next 25 years. Tierney was initially offered the lead role in National Velvet, but production was delayed.[4][pageneeded] When Columbia Pictures failed to find Tierney a project, she returned to Broadway and starred as Patricia Stanley to critical and commercial success in The Male Animal (1940). In The New York Times, Brooks Atkinson wrote, "Tierney blazes with animation in the best performance she has yet given".[4][pageneeded] She was the toast of Broadway before her 20th birthday. The Male Animal was a hit, and Tierney was featured in Life magazine. She was also photographed by Harper's Bazaar, Vogue, and Collier's Weekly.[4][pageneeded]

Two weeks after The Male Animal opened, Darryl F. Zanuck, the head of 20th Century Fox, was rumored to have been in the audience. During the performance, he told an assistant to note Tierney's name. Later that night, Zanuck dropped by the Stork Club, where he saw a young lady on the dance floor. He told his assistant, "Forget the girl from the play. See if you can sign that one." It was Tierney. At first, Zanuck did not think she was the actress he had seen. Tierney was quoted (after the fact), saying: "I always had several different 'looks', a quality that proved useful in my career."[4][pageneeded][6]

Receiving top billing in Ernst Lubitsch's comedy Heaven Can Wait (1943), as Martha Strable Van Cleve, signaled an upward turn in Tierney's career. Tierney recalled during the production of Heaven Can Wait:

Lubitsch was a tyrant on the set, the most demanding of directors. After one scene, which took from noon until five to get, I was almost in tears from listening to Lubitsch shout at me. The next day I sought him out, looked him in the eye, and said, 'Mr. Lubitsch, I'm willing to do my best but I just can't go on working on this picture if you're going to keep shouting at me.' 'I'm paid to shout at you', he bellowed. 'Yes', I said, 'and I'm paid to take it – but not enough.' After a tense pause, Lubitsch broke out laughing. From then on we got along famously.[4][pageneeded]

In the course of the 1940s, she reached a pinnacle of fame as a beautiful leading lady, on a par with "fellow sirens Rita Hayworth, Lana Turner and Ava Gardner".[2] She was "called the most beautiful woman in movie history" and many of her movies in the 1940s became classic films.[3]

With difficult events in her personal life, Tierney struggled for years with episodes of manic depression. In 1943, she gave birth to a daughter, Daria, who was deaf and mentally disabled, the result of a fan breaking a rubella quarantine and infecting the pregnant Tierney while she volunteered at the Hollywood Canteen.[12] In 1953, she suffered problems with concentration, which affected her film appearances. She dropped out of Mogambo and was replaced by Grace Kelly.[4][pageneeded] While playing Anne Scott in The Left Hand of God (1955), opposite Humphrey Bogart, Tierney became ill. Bogart's sister Frances (known as Pat) had suffered from mental illness, so he showed Tierney great sympathy, feeding her lines during the production and encouraging her to seek help.[4][pageneeded]

Tierney consulted a psychiatrist and was admitted to Harkness Pavilion in New York. Later, she went to the Institute of Living in Hartford, Connecticut. After some 27 shock treatments, intended to alleviate severe depression, Tierney fled the facility, but was caught and returned. She later became an outspoken opponent of shock treatment therapy, claiming it had destroyed significant portions of her memory.[citation needed]

In late December 1957, Tierney, from her mother's apartment in Manhattan, stepped onto a ledge 14 stories above ground and remained for about 20 minutes in what was considered a suicide attempt.[12] Police were called, and afterwards Tierney's family arranged for her to be admitted to the Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas. The following year, after treatment for depression, she was discharged. Afterwards, she worked as a sales girl in a local dress shop with hopes of integrating back into society,[12] but she was recognized by a customer, resulting in sensational newspaper headlines.[citation needed]

Later in 1958, 20th Century-Fox offered Tierney a lead role in Holiday for Lovers (1959), but the stress upon her proved too great, so only days into production, she dropped out of the film and returned to Menninger for a time.[12]

Personal life

Tierney married two men: the first was Oleg Cassini, a costume and fashion designer, on June 1, 1941, with whom she eloped. Her parents opposed the marriage, as he was from a Russian-Italian family and born in France.[12] She had two daughters, Antoinette Daria Cassini (October 15, 1943 – September 11, 2010)[13] and Christina "Tina" Cassini (November 19, 1948 – March 31, 2015),

In June 1943, while pregnant with Daria, Tierney contracted rubella (German measles), likely from a fan ill with the disease.[12] Daria was born prematurely in Washington, DC, weighing three pounds, two ounces (1.42kg) and requiring a total blood transfusion. The rubella caused congenital damage: Daria was deaf, partially blind with cataracts, and severely mentally disabled. She was institutionalized for much of her life.[12] This entire incident was inspiration for a plot point in the 1962 Agatha Christie novel The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side.[citation needed]

Tierney's friend Howard Hughes paid for Daria's medical expenses, ensuring the girl received the best care. Tierney never forgot his acts of kindness.[4]

Tierney and Cassini separated October 20, 1946, and entered into a property settlement agreement on November 10.[14] Periodicals during this period record Tierney with Charles K. Feldman,[15] including articles related to her "twosoming" with Feldman, her "current best beau".[16] The divorce was to be finalized in March 1948, but they reconciled before then.[17]

During their separation, Tierney met John F. Kennedy, a young World War II veteran, who was visiting the set of Dragonwyck in 1946. They began a romance that she ended the following year after Kennedy told her he could never marry her because of his political ambitions.[9] In 1960, Tierney sent Kennedy a note of congratulations on his victory in the presidential election. During this time, newspapers documented Tierney's other romantic relationships, including Kirk Douglas.[18]

Despite her self-imposed exile in Texas, Tierney received work offers from Hollywood, prompting her to a comeback. She appeared in a November 1960 broadcast of General Electric Theater, during which time she discovered that she was pregnant. Shortly after, 20th Century Fox announced Tierney would play the lead role in Return to Peyton Place, but she withdrew from the production after suffering a miscarriage.[23]

Later years

Tierney's autobiography, Self-Portrait, in which she candidly discusses her life, career, and mental illness, was published in 1979.

Tierney's second husband, W. Howard Lee, died on February 17, 1981 after a long illness.[22]

Quotes

By Tierney

"Joe Schenck, a top 20th Century-Fox executive, once said to me that he really believed I had a future, and that was because I was the only girl who could survive so many bad pictures." —quoted in The RKO Girls

Cultural references

Tierney was ranked number 71 in Premiere Magazine's list of "The 100 Sexiest Movie Stars of All Time".[30]

A noted comedy routine between Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis involved Lewis (in boxing shorts and gear) stating that he's fighting Gene Tierney.[31] This plays on the similarly named Gene Tunney, who held the world heavyweight boxing title from 1926 to 1928.

The Off-Broadway Musical Violet references Gene Tierney several times. The main character Violet states that she wants a pair of "Gene Tierney eyes" due to the fact that her face was disfigured after an accident involving her father.

See also

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References

1 2 "Gene Tierney Biography". Turner Classics Movies. Retrieved August 20, 2018. Tierney emerged as a leading lady of equal beauty and depth...Tierney attained a strata of celebrity that put her on par with fellow sirens Rita Hayworth, Lana Turner and Ava Gardner"

1 2 Vogel, Michelle (2009). Gene Tierney: A Biography. McFarland. ISBN978-0786458325. Called the most beautiful woman in movie history, Gene Tierney starred in a number of 1940s classics, including Laura, Leave Her to Heaven and The Ghost and Mrs. Muir.

↑ "The 100 Sexiest Movie Stars of All Time - 71. Gene Tierney". premiere.com. Archived from the original on April 6, 2009. Retrieved 6 May 2014. Tierney, a classic beauty, may at first seem too elegant to be a sex symbol, but her Oscar-nominated performance as the femme fatale in Leave Her to Heaven firmly established her sexy cred. Plus, Tierney owned her look. She didn't let studio executives mess with her hair color or length, and refused to fix a slight overbite, earning extra sexy points for confidence.